I'm leaving for London tomorrow...

...then we are heading to Glastonbury on Wednesday! I'm going with my English friends who have been to the festival many times. Sounds like it will be almost a full week of festivities. Thursday has its own line-up of events even though the festival doesn't officially start until Friday. We will stay until the Monday after...apparently traffic is horrendous so its best to wait it out.

Yay! Wish me luck!!!!!

Oh yeah, who has traveled abroad recently? What's the best way to bring money? I'm sort of nervous about carrying $2 grand in cash around in my pocket, but I don't know what else to do. Whenever I've been abroad before I've always stayed long enough to open a bank account. I've done travelers checks before and they were a pain in the ass, nobody would accept them. What should I do?

Re: I'm leaving for London tomorrow...

Re: I'm leaving for London tomorrow...

Just bring your credit card (Mastercard or Visa, not Diners Club or something weird) and an ATM card. Pretty much all banks in the UK will accept any ATM card with the Cirrus logo, Plus logo, or other similar international networks. You'll also get better exchange rates than you will with a travelers check or cash. Just make sure your bank doesn't charge more than a couple dollars in international processing fees. If you were traveling somewhere more remote I'd say bring a couple hundred dollars cash in case of emergency, but that's probably not necessary if you're just going to London.

Re: I'm leaving for London tomorrow...

I had one of those passport holders that you put under your clothes with the strap around your neck when I went to Reading years ago. The wallet part is supposed to go under your shirt, but I think the strap was long enough that it was in my pants, so I ended up taking cash out of my pants. Didn't exactly look good.

Re: I'm leaving for London tomorrow...

For the fees, it depends on what your home bank is and which kind of account you have with them. For example, I know that my old HSBC account never charged me more than $2.50 for international withdrawals (on top of the foreign bank's $1.00 fee or whatever). Now that I have Bank of America, they always try to charge me some ungodly $10.00 fee per transaction, but I always call and complain after trips and threaten to put my money elsewhere, so they always remove the charges from my account. This is probably really inefficient and I should just get a different bank account. But anyway, that's a long way of saying that she should call up and ask and figure it out.